


boring things

by orangelight



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Hugging, M/M, a thousand pov shifts, enjolras is incredibly horny, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26351842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangelight/pseuds/orangelight
Summary: Enjolras is the most boring man alive. Grantaire wants to hug the life out of him for it. He might also sneak into his place to clean things, but that's neither here nor there.---The more he thinks about it (while cleaning Enjolras’s room, because he’s busy at his stupid boring job and he never dusts his stupid boring bookshelf), the more he just wants to grab him and squeeze him until he pops.So he decides he’s just going to do that now. Whatever, right? He’ll just... hug him now. Whenever he wants. He needs to get rid of some of this built up, backed up love and Enjolras can deal with the vague suggestion of excitement in his life for five goddamn seconds a week.(AKA five times Grantaire hugs Enjolras, and one time Enjolras hugs him)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100





	boring things

Grantaire has a problem with Enjolras.

The problem with Enjolras isn’t that he’s inhumanly beautiful, or kind, or in possession of a moral backbone made of solid steel- no, these are all things Grantaire could deal with. Lots of his friends are all of those things (like, okay, maybe Enjolras was more his _type_ , or whatever, and he didn’t steal anyone else’s pens for the sake of indirect handholding, but the point is valid). He’d been friends with people he wanted to sleep with, with people who had forgiven him far more times than he deserved, with people who were constantly standing up for what they believed in. These were things he could become friends with. They weren’t the _problem_.

The problem with Enjolras is that he’s boring. 

Sometimes it seems like there isn’t anything actually going on in his head but calculations of how to achieve Maximum Justice, or something. He would sit quietly working, serious but never angry, all calmness and spreadsheets and social change. There’s no acknowledgement of pop culture references besides an angry look Grantaire had come to realize wasn’t actually angry, but his own brand of confused. He occasionally seems to listen to whatever ambient music is around, but there’s no app for it on his phone (the apps he _does_ have are: weather. Calendar. Facetime. News. Grantaire has checked.) and he doesn’t seem to even own earphones. He likes talking about the minutiae of politics and law. He doesn’t have anything that Grantaire would deem an actual hobby _(volunteering doesn’t count)_. He doesn’t make jokes. Hell, he rarely laughs.

Even the cadence of his voice in casual conversation is monotonous. 

And sure, people like him. His constantly furrowed brow reads more as determined than intimidating, something his below average height, delicate build, and stupid fluffy curls definitely contributes to. He’s exceedingly polite and his language is a bit too formal, but he’s always too earnest for it to seem pretentious. He’s a good listener. A good friend. A good guy.

But he is _so goddamn dull_. So incessantly serious, so severe. There’s absolutely no reason for that to have become one of the most significant factors in Grantaire’s infatuation. Grantaire, of all the fucking people! He hates being bored! Everything he does is to stave off boredom, or anything even remotely serious, and this is what he gets? The love of his life is Mr. Fucking Dullsville over here? Sir Sober? Our Lady of Perpetual Humorlessness?

He figures it has something to do with that feeling you get when you see a particularly stupid looking animal- the way their eyes seem to exist only to convey the complete lack of thought behind them just makes them cuter. Probably.

The problem with being so boring is that Enjolras, no matter how he initially seemed to match the description, is simply not the kind of guy you want to fuck. Make sweet love to, in the missionary position with the lights off at nine o’clock on a Friday night followed by immediately washing up and going to bed, sure. Obviously. But fuck? See, that would be easy. He’s like 90% posi Enjolras is already in the horn zone for him. But Grantaire hadn’t really been able to see him like that in months. Which isn’t good for him, because it feels way more serious.

Fucking is fun. He fucks all the time. It feels good and you get to know people and you get better every time. You know what isn’t fun? Hearing “Individual I am in a relationship with, I have arrived back at the house in which we live. Let us prepare ourselves in separate rooms and perform coitus on one another for approximately ten minutes.”

You know what that sounds like? Like hell. And Enjolras. 

And yet, the thought of it makes him grit his teeth against the force of a Cute Aggression response so powerful he thinks his molars might turn to dust.

The more he thinks about it (while cleaning Enjolras’s room, because he’s busy at his stupid boring job and he _never_ dusts his stupid boring bookshelf), the more he just wants to grab him and squeeze him until he pops. 

So he decides he’s just going to do that now. Whatever, right? He’ll just... hug him now. Whenever he wants. He needs to get rid of some of this built up, backed up love and Enjolras can deal with the vague suggestion of excitement in his life for five goddamn seconds a week. 

\---

When he turns to Grantaire, it’s with a look bordering on suspicious. 

“Why would I need a hug?”

Grantaire snorts a laugh at him. Enjolras feels his eyelids fall to half mast, totally detached. He doesn’t understand the point of Grantaire’s emergence from the shadows to simply announce to him that he was, apparently, in need of a hug. He hasn’t been hugged since he was 13 by a girl who wasn’t in any of his classes, and who ran off immediately afterwards. Unless grapples counted as hugging. He can’t remember if he’d been hugged before that, and he was alive and healthy and well now, wasn’t he?

“How the hell should I know why?” Grantaire asks, grinning. It’s lascivious. “I’m not omniscient. I don’t know what shit you poor overachieving twinks have to deal with; I’m simply a man, coming to kneel before you in humility, and offer my unparalleled hugging services.”

Enjolras’s mouth twists in confusion. “You’re not kneeling.” 

In the same moment, Courfeyrac walks by and, without looking up from his phone, announces: “Don’t listen to him. He smells like regurgitated Burnett’s and BO.”

“Fuck _off!_ ” 

“Grantaire, I don’t think you’re being as surreptitious as you think you are.”

Grantaire’s head immediately snaps away from Courfeyrac’s retreating form and back to Enjolras. There is a faint cracking sound.

“W-what? No, I’m not being- I’m not doing anything weird.”

Enjolras watches his lazy posture stiffen and his eyes widen in panic. He wonders at the possibilities for Grantaire’s treachery, and can’t think of the most likely trick- planting something on him? A kick-me sign? An ice cube down the back of his shirt?- so he sticks to the general idea, even if specificity would’ve been more cutting.

“You’re trying to play a prank on me. Again.”

Grantaire pauses for a moment. He smiles awkwardly. Enjolras continues to stare at him, deeply unimpressed.

“...A prank?”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow.

“No, Enj, it’s really- God, it isn’t a prank, you dumbass!” 

“It makes no sense otherwise-“

“It makes no sense that your friend wants to comfort you when you look sad? You look- you’re staring vacantly off into the middle distance like you’re reliving your squalid childhood at the center of the suffering and toil of the Dust Bowl. I’m trying to be good! I can do good stuff!”

“You want to hug me to… prove you can do good stuff?”

Letting out a frustrated noise, Grantaire flops into the chair directly beside Enjolras and buries his head in his arms. He groans, kicks the leg of the table, and then finally turns his head to send Enjolras a morose look.

“Fine. Don’t accept my kindness. I don’t care.”

Enjolras nods at him, glad to be finished with this charade, and returns to handwriting a letter to the provost even though his laptop is sitting on the table six inches from him. 

Grantaire... doesn’t move, though. It takes him about a minute to realize this. Grantaire moves around a lot, most of the time.

Is he waiting for something? Did he go to sleep? Enjolras glances at his phone; it’s only nine o’clock. He feels like he can’t turn to look at him to see what he’s doing because he might take it the wrong way and think Enjolras doesn’t want him there. 

Does he want him there? Maybe. Probably not like this. It’s nice to sit next to Grantaire. Their knees are almost touching and Enjolras can feel his body heat, and it’s all very intimate and erotic and he can fantasize about disgusting, lewd things like leaning over and kissing his ear and he’s perfectly pleased that it’s happening.

He just can’t wrap his head around why. Grantaire doesn’t usually do this. Usually, he flops around the room and hangs off of everyone and, uh, whines, he thinks? Enjolras doesn’t really make for a good target- he’s been told he has a flat affect, and he’s overheard Grantaire calling him boring. Mostly after he’s pranked him. He apparently doesn’t react to pranks well, which he doesn’t get, because it’s not like he gets angry or upset, and he makes sure he compliments the person who did it for getting him. 

Grantaire makes another frustrated noise beside him. It’s been three minutes since he noticed Grantaire’s lack of… Grantaire stuff. And he hasn’t written a word. He can feel sweat begin to prickle at his forehead. What was the last thing he said? Was it a question? Was Enjolras supposed to respond to something? 

The agonizing is ridiculous. He turns, mouth open and words already leaving his lips, and stops when he sees Grantaire already glaring daggers at him. 

“Is- what?”

Grantaire groans. Again. “Enjolras! Just let me!”

“Let you what?”

“Let me _wh- hug you!_ ” Grantaire makes a maddened gesture, throwing his arms out wildly. The sudden movement causes his knee to bump minutely against Enjolras’s. Enjolras jolts as if he’s been electrocuted. “I’m trying to hug you so you’ll stop sitting there like a sad Victorian street urchin too young to be so hardened by the cruelty of the world!”

He blinks owlishly, rapidly for a moment. “Oh. This is still about that.”

“You know what? Fuck you.” Grantaire says, decisively, and straddles Enjolras’s lap. 

Enjolras thinks it must be happening at lightning speed, like Grantaire has superpowers or something, because the instant the movement began it had ended and now their entire bodies are flush against each other and Grantaire is crushing Enjolras’s face to his tits.

“Okay.” Enjolras says. 

Grantaire shushes him. “Just let me. I’m so good at this. You’ll see.”

Enjolras has no frame of reference, but he thinks that Grantaire might not actually be good at this at all. The grip around his head smothering him in Grantaire’s chest is so tight he thinks he might already be getting a headache. Courfeyrac was right about the way he smelled. His entire body weight was concentrated on Enjolras’s thighs and he could actively feel the circulation being cut off. 

But, well. Grantaire was cute. And in his lap. And cute. So he hugged him back.

Grantaire relaxes against him. “There, isn’t that better?”

Courfeyrac walks by again, going the opposite direction. He mutters, “Rest in pieces, Enj.” and is gone before Grantaire can respond.

Enjolras thinks. Is it better? He isn’t sure what “it” is. Had he been sad before? He didn’t really think so. If he wasn’t sad but Grantaire thought he was and was just doing this to make him stop being sad, which he hadn’t been, was he inadvertently manipulating him into a very stationary lapdance? He is getting a little hard. Grantaire is warm, and has nice, thick legs and hips. His stomach is so soft it just kind of molds against Enjolras’s, but the back of the chair is digging into his lower spine. 

Grantaire sighs happily. 

He’s is heavy, but he doesn’t seem solid anywhere. Like a marshmallow. Enjolras wonders if he could carry him. He kind of wants to. That would seem manly or something, right? Girls like when guys do that. Would Grantaire like it if he could carry him? He needs to get back to his MMA classes. 

“Grantaire,” He says. It’s slightly muffled against Grantaire’s shirt. “I know it wasn’t your intention, so I wanted to inform you that this position is arousing me.”

The body on top of him goes completely rigid. He feels vaguely disappointed.

Grantaire makes a steady, high-pitched noise behind closed lips the entire time he’s walking away.

\---

He’s laying on the floor of his apartment, crying for some reason, when Grantaire walks in through the front door carrying a multitude of plastic bags.

Enjolras pauses, mid-sob, and stares up at him. Grantaire stares back.

“The door was locked,” He whimpers.

“Yeah, I unlocked it.”

Enjolras sniffs pathetically. “How?”

“Oh, y’know,” Grantaire begins casually, piling his bags up on the cracked counter like he lives there. “I just got a copy of your key made.”

“When?”

“Combeferre told me you looked like you were reaching critical mass before he left this morning so I was like ‘Oh, should I go over?’ and he was like ‘Whatever you think is best’ and I was like ‘Yeah, sure, what should I bring?’ and he said ‘Whatever you think is best’ so I called Courfeyrac and he said ‘Lube’ so I texted Jehan and he said ‘Food’ so I called Bahorel and he said ‘Lube’ so I just stuck with food.”

“ _When._ ”

Grantaire huffs. “God, Enj, I don’t know, like a year ago. You’re so uptight.”

Enjolras’s brow furrows. Had they even known each other for a year? “You’ve only been over here twice.”

“What? I’ve been over here tons of times. Who do you think does your laundry? Why are you laying on the floor crying?”

He isn’t sure. He cries on the floor a lot, and he’s never been able to pinpoint a reason. The carpet is grey and probably home to a colony of silverfish. “It feels right to cry on the floor.”

“No, I mean- like, not the floor part. The crying part.”

“Oh,” He says. That’s harder. He has no idea. It happens about once a month, the sensation of something huge and indefinable building in his chest and then squeezing out, thick and burning like curry paste, from his eyes. “Does Combeferre know you do the laundry?”

“I only do yours,” Grantaire responds, getting on the floor next to him. “Do you wanna hug?”

This again. Enjolras isn’t sure about this hugging thing. He doesn’t think he was really built for it. Last time was okay, but he’s pretty sure you’re not supposed to think about how uncomfortable or horny you are when you’re hugging. Other people don’t do that.

“Sure,” He says anyway, because he can at least say he hadn’t started it.

Grantaire curls up around him, head on his chest, arm around his midsection, leg thrown over his hips. He has to raise up a little so Grantaire can reach his other arm underneath him. 

It’s better than last time. There’s nothing erotic about it for his body to misconstrue, even though he does kind of think maybe this is how you cuddle after you have sex. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he just lets one fall on Grantaire’s head. He feels him shiver. Grantaire has a cute head. There’s less weight on him, which he thought would be better, but he thinks maybe the weight wasn’t the problem as much as the concentration because it feels a little flimsy this time. Maybe if Grantaire laid directly on top of him. If Grantaire was into hugging or whatever, maybe he could lay on his legs when they felt restless and weird, or maybe he could even sit on them. That was a nice thought. He thought about the last time and how it must’ve looked with Grantaire sitting in his lap. Did it kind of look like they were fucking? He should ask Courfeyrac. What other places on him could Grantaire sit? His chest? His face? 

Shit. Hard again.

“Grantaire?” He ventures, but Grantaire is snoring loudly. He can already feel drool beginning to wet his shirt. 

\---

It’s 5AM and he’s picking Grantaire up from the airport. He doesn’t know why it’s him and him alone, but Bossuet had texted him the night before letting him know where and when he had to be with a bunch of little star emojis so he’d just said okay and set his alarm. Maybe he set it too early and he’s starting to suffer some weird side effect of sleep deprivation, because he’s bouncing on his heels for some reason. His hands are sweaty and his chest feels strange. 

People have begun filing out, but Grantaire isn’t among them. He keeps thinking he won’t ever be, even though he knows this is the right flight terminal. Is it? Yeah, it is. Then why isn’t Grantaire coming out? Did he cancel his flight? Maybe he’s staying with his mom for another day? Did he get sick? Did he get hurt? Did he die? Is he dead? Is Enjolras standing in an airport waiting for a boy who will never come and it won’t be because his job told him he didn’t have to come in on Tuesday so he stayed an extra day visiting his family but because he got beaten to death in some horrible, humid Florida parking garage in the middle of the night because he was wine drunk and talking shit and they threw his body in the ocean and now he’s cold and pale in the water and he’ll never ever ever come see him again?

Grantaire walks around the corner yawning, a pair of sunglasses sitting lopsided on his head. His skin is darker than when he left. When he sees Enjolras, he gets a confused look on his face, but he’s smiling and shouldering his bag and running up to him.

“Hey, Enj, what are you doing here?” He asks, wrapping Enjolras’s stiff body in his arms and squeezing the breath out of him, feeling more loose and hot than the last time they touched. He doesn’t let go.

“Bossuet told me to come get you.” He wants to hug back. Should he hug back?

Grantaire laughs into his hair. “Aww, maybe he got sick. Sorry you’re saddled with the dirty work. I’m kinda glad it’s you though- everyone in my mom’s neighborhood spends so much time at the beach, I thought I’d never see another pasty, uptight wannabe punk again. The horror!”

He hugs him back and hums in agreement. “Wanna get breakfast?”

Grantaire makes a tired, excited noise and agrees, but they don’t leave for another few minutes. 

\---

Grantaire has been all over him all night.

It’s not that he’s wrapping his arms and legs around whatever part of Enjolras is nearest to him, or that every time he laughs he ducks his face against Enjolras’s neck, or even that he’s leaning against him with so much trust and carelessness that Enjolras can’t help but feel like he’s the single most dependable, capable person on the face of the planet, because that all objectively rocks. It’s that it’s board game night, which means everyone they’re close with is sitting in Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta’s cute, tiny apartment, _watching_ him do it, and he’s acting like it’s no big deal. 

Which it is. It’s a massive deal. It’s the biggest imaginable deal. He’s in just a tank top and sweatpants, barefoot, and he’s smothering Enjolras in skin and breath and body parts that Enjolras had never even known he _wanted_ to be smothered with. In front of all their friends. Their friends, who are nosy, and who, on top of making jokes about it all night, will take him aside later and ask him seriously what it was all about, and he’ll have no idea how to answer. 

It’s demented. 

And there’s nothing he can do about it. What is he supposed to say? ‘Get off me’, like he actually wants that? ‘This is hot’, like it’ll get him anything but disgust? ‘I like you’? ‘Are you wearing panties’? It’s a nightmare. It’s hellish. He’s getting lightheaded from blushing so much for so long. His dick is hard. Grantaire’s two-day stubble is leaving irritated red patches on the back of his neck. 

“Ground Control to Major Tom,” Grantaire says, quietly, tauntingly, in his ear. “You still with me, papi?”

“I’m fine,” He says, glaring at a whorl in the wood of the living room table. 

Grantaire tightens his grip around Enjolras’s shoulders, bringing them in close. His lips touch Enjolras’s ear. He can feel his beard and hear the saliva in his mouth when he whispers. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?” 

A shiver goes down the back of his neck, so powerful that his eyes roll up into their sockets. He absently hears Bahorel and Courfeyrac burst into screaming laughter. Jehan coos. 

He’s losing his mind. 

“This is humiliating,” He mutters under his breath. Grantaire huffs another quiet laugh into his ear and he clenches his teeth.

“Good.”

\---

Enjolras is currently standing in the middle of the street, arms crossed and glaring at the driver of the truck stopped a foot in front of him. A mallard is leading her little brown and yellow ducklings to the lake across the road. The driver doesn’t even look like he cares. Enjolras is still puffing up his chest and scowling disdainfully, like he expects the guy to try and start something.

He’s wearing a stupid, boring gray t-shirt and stupid, boring jeans and stupid, boring sneakers, and he looks like an idiot, and like the sunshine that filters through the leaves.

Grantaire was just passing through. Now one of his earbuds has fallen out and he can vaguely hear the driver try to announce that he wasn’t going to run them over, and very clearly hear Enjolras respond with a brazen “I’m not willing to take that chance”. Like an idiot. 

He can’t help it. It’s all love, all the way down. 

By the time the sound of little webbed feet slapping against asphalt and then concrete gives way to the silent safety of grass, he’s hauling Enjolras’s struggling body off in his arms and dumping him by the bank. Enjolras is clutching at him, and in his joy, he lets himself fall down with him.

“What the hell are you doing?! They’re-”

“They’re already in the water, you idiot!” 

The grass this close to the lake is slightly muddy, and stirring with little bugs that float around like tiny drops of sunlight. Enjolras is a furious daisy beneath him. He can hear himself laughing, higher and breathier than he ever has in his life, above the sound of insects buzzing. Droplets of water are hitting Enjolras’s cheek. 

“Grantaire..?”

Enjolras’s voice sounds concerned, and there’s a soft, worried expression on his face. There’s a canker sore healing on his bottom lip. Grantaire kisses it without thinking. 

“You’re the love of my life!” He shouts, feeling hysteric, against Enjolras’s mouth. “Did you even know? You’re the love of my life!”

“W-what?” Enjolras asks, the perfect image of confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“What, you didn’t hear me? I’m in love with you, stupid; I love you. No one else will ever even come close. You’re it for me.”

There’s a blush high on Enjolras’s cheeks, tinting his ears red, but his confusion is melting into a wary little smile. Grantaire doesn’t know if he’s ever seen so many different expressions on him. He blinks hard, as if to photograph them with his eyes.

“I- okay? When did that happen?”

He kisses him again, humming and laughing through his nose, and he can feel as Enjolras breaks into a grin and snorts the cutest, ugliest sound he’s ever heard, and tries to ask him something again, so he kisses his teeth, and his crinkling eyes, and his cheeks. 

Without warning, Enjolras’s face falls. He looks away awkwardly before shutting his eyes tight.

“Um-?”

“Grantaire, I- I’m sorry. This is a very, uh- a very tender moment, but it would be remiss if I didn’t inform you that I’m becoming aroused.”

Grantaire laughs and, helpless against it, doesn’t stop. 

\---

They’ve been together for three months.

Sometimes, he still can’t believe it- can’t believe that some mornings the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Enjolras, the sun illuminating his chapped lower lip and the faint acne scarring on the apple of his cheek. These are the things he alone has: the life that twitches beneath Enjolras’s eyelids on this particular Saturday morning. The way his nose scrunches up because his allergies are worse than usual this summer. The messiness of his curls after sweating through last night’s unusually high heat. 

There’s something to be said about the beauty in those little, boring things.

He kisses his temple softly, and huffs a laugh when Enjolras makes a barely-there questioning noise in the back of his throat. 

“Good morning,” He whispers, nuzzling into damp hair. Pretty eyes flutter open, and the expression on Enjolras’s face is even stupider than usual. Grantaire grins.

“‘Morning,” Enjolras responds vaguely, voice rough with sleep. His arms reach out heavily towards the body next to him, and Grantaire sidles himself into them more properly. The hug is light and soft, what with Enjolras still being half asleep, but Grantaire immediately feels safer than he has in his life. It’s an embrace that tells him he’s something delicate and precious, something that is worthy of protection, something that is being protected.

“We should take a shower.”

“‘Kay,” Enjolras says. Then all at once, he’s awake and staring at Grantaire with wide eyes. “Together?!”

“Yeah, together. You wanna?”

“What, like a- like a sex shower?”

“Other way around, I think.”

"Oh. Shower sex?"

Grantaire doesn’t even try to stop himself. He laughs right in Enjolras’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> boy was this stupid
> 
> sorry i wrote it all chronologically in one sitting, so there's probably a thousand errors- hope it doesnt make it too hard to read!


End file.
